All Hours is a series showcasing Oura members from diverse backgrounds, professions, and lifestyles — an artist-producer, an Olympic athlete, a CEO. Each episode demonstrates how these members turn to Oura to inform the actions, routines, and decisions that impact their health, at all hours of the day.
Oura members and entrepreneurs Les Alfred, Maggi Simpkins, and Michelle Pellizzon Lipsitz know what it takes to build a thriving business. They also know how important it is to take care of your health and well-being along the way.
With advanced sleep tracking technology and personalized insights, Oura provides guidance to help them manage their busy schedules, enhance productivity at work, and know when it’s time to rest.
Watch All Hours Episode 7:
Meet Les Alfred, podcast host and founder of Balanced Black Girl
Les founded Balanced Black Girl in 2018, a health and wellness blog, content hub, and chart-topping podcast. Created from a love of fitness and nutrition, Les built a community of women to share free resources and amplify the voices of Black and Brown women in wellness.
On the importance of community:
I started Balanced Black Girl because I wanted a space to highlight Black women and wellness. I was getting feedback from my community that when I wasn’t posting or sharing information about wellness, they often didn’t see other Black and Brown women in their feeds talking about the same thing. And so I created that platform to introduce my audience to other Black and Brown women who are wellness experts they could learn from.
On what led her to Oura:
As someone with a background in fitness — a former personal trainer and a former fitness blogger, I’m very familiar with the desire to go hard and do more. And when I started using Oura, I began listening to my body in different ways and understanding that more isn’t always better.
On how Oura has helped with her reproductive health journey:
Using the Natural Cycles and Oura integration has really helped me completely change my relationship with my body. Before that, I did not understand my menstrual cycle at all.
Understanding the different phases and how I feel during the different phases, and what my Readiness Score looks like during each phase has been really game-changing for me. So oftentimes, it really validates how I am already physically feeling. If maybe I’m feeling a little bit more tired, if I’m in my luteal phase, it can really validate why I maybe have a hard time focusing or why I’m moving a little bit slower and need a little bit more rest.
READ MORE: How Your Menstrual Cycle Impacts Your Entire Body
Meet Maggi Simpkins, jewelry designer at Maggi Simpkins and artist
Maggi is a designer, artist, and creative entrepreneur who creates narrative-driven engagement rings and family heirlooms. Her exponential business growth has demanded a busy schedule, which led to burnout.
On how she styles her Oura Ring:
I literally don’t even notice when I am wearing it because it is so comfortable, and because it is gold, it blends in with my other jewelry really well. I stack a couple of my sentimental bands alongside it.
On what she’s learned about rest:
Last year I experienced burnout for the first time, and my body made me slow down. I inherited the working hard gene from my mom, and she is not good at resting. The work mentality we’re taught is that rest is laziness, and it’s simply not true. Rest is a necessity. I’m taking care of my body so that I can then show up tomorrow fully for myself and everyone else around me.
On prioritizing sleep:
My work is so detail-oriented, so if I haven’t had a good night’s rest, my ability to focus on the really small, minor details kind of goes out the window. I have so much less patience for things… and so much of what I do is dependent on me being really patient. Oura has really helped me be very conscious about my sleep, which I feel makes a huge difference in my overall health.
READ MORE: 4 Ways to Prevent Mental Fatigue & Information Overload
Meet Michelle Pellizzon Lipsitz, founder and CEO of Holisticism
Michelle founded Holisticism, a mystical wellness business and community, to create space for women and non-binary people to have unconventional conversations about the intersection of health and magic. Michelle is also a new parent learning how to adjust to her new role while running a business.
On pregnancy:
I had a difficult pregnancy… most of my wellness routine went out the window. Finding my footing while my body was changing rapidly (and while balancing my work) was tough, and the Oura Ring gave me a great baseline of quantitative information to work with.
Prior to getting pregnant, I wasn’t really a “rest” person. It was tough for me to be chill until I had a scare at about six months when I started having contractions and knew I had to slow down and take my rest more seriously. I also really liked tracking my heart rate on the Oura Ring – I even wore my ring throughout my labor!
On finding balance postpartum:
I just want to go, go, go, but especially postpartum, that doesn’t work. It’s wild how much not getting enough sleep, not eating enough, and excessive stress impact your milk supply. Having the Oura Ring to have some actual quantitative information on how I’m improving over time has been so useful.
On the role of Oura in the Holisticism philosophy:
I think that everything is information, and we get to choose what to do with that information. The data I get from my Oura Ring is just information for me – I decide how to interpret and act on what I’ve learned. I feel the same about signs, synchronicity, and the magic I experience in the world.
READ MORE: Sleep 101 for New Parents
What’s Your Oura Story?
Everyone’s story is unique, and we’d love to hear yours. Share your story here.
